


you keep breathing (why can't i)

by occultine



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Dark, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Love, M/M, Reunions, Sad, Solangelo Babies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 12:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18142328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/occultine/pseuds/occultine
Summary: there's    a    humming  in    the    restless    summer      air→he's fifteen and ninety simultaneously with fire in his blood and war in his past and a couple hundred memories of a boy with hair like the sun and a smile to match←→suddenly he's fifteen again and linking his fingers with someone else's smaller ones, someone else's nimble ones- suddenly he's fifteen again and he can't breathe because he has never seen someone look so beautiful covered in blood and pain, someone so sad with such dark melancholy in their eyes, aphotic grief in their veins, and there's a tingling in his bones and his tongue stumbles over his teeth. suddenly he's fifteen again and he wants to laugh and cry and oh gods tonight this––this is where it all begins)←





	1. holy water cannot help you now

**Author's Note:**

> this has been sitting in my notes for a while x i hope you enjoy.

 

 

 

 

_**holy water cannot help you now ~~~~**_

  


He gets drunk on holy water to feel the addiction in his veins, the ecstasy at his fingertips, liquor in his lungs– and he thinks, _holy water cannot help you now,_ when he traces the scars on his skin and breathes smoke into his burning lungs (burning lungs and swaying hips and _holy water cannot help you now_ ).

 

Tonight the gods are sick of being gods, and he sick of being _theirs,_ and Aphrodite smiles with sugar on her lips and poison on her tongue and suddenly all the butterflies are _dead_ (butterflies are dead and so is a poor poor heart), whilst he walks in the streetlight fog with smoke in his lungs and hands on his skin and–

 

–(tonight the gods are sick of–

            he's sick of being _theirs_ ).

 

–tonight the car lights blur into the darkness, noise dances with the silence, embers twirled in his fingertips and blood staining his sinful lips. The quiet is lulling and his silver glinting– silver ring glinting in the pale moonlight and lips slick with red, with sin.

 

Boy with smoke on his tongue; boy with rebellion in his bones; boy with a thousand years of heartache in his blood and a thousand more in his gunshot smiles; boy with a bloody red grin screaming his name and fifteen years of ignition in his soul.

 

( _Holy water cannot help you now)._

 

\---

 

A year is a long time and a lot can happen in a year. He sits in a shitty diner with stuttering lights and a crackling radio with an empty mug on the chipped cream table, one he hasn't been to in a year since he ran off with the wind in his hair and burning in his chest ( a year can change a lot but still some things never change).

 

A year is a long time and his memory is foggy, but he can vaguely remember the crimson seats of cheap leather and ugly tiles splashed with green, the walls stained with coffee and floor washed with heartbreak. He can remember the waitress with the gleaming teeth and artificial smile and ocean eyes that made the words die in his throat, the heat rise to his neck and the itch under his skin– remembers the way she looked at him like he was any other angsty teenager who's seen too much of the world, not a creepy son of Hades with a bitter coffee and an attitude to match.

 

(He thinks it was sometime in November when the air was biting and the adreadline of war still hadn’t faded).

 

It's been a year, and a lot has changed and he _knows_ a lot has changed because he has a little tattoo of the moon on his right wrist, a little tattoo he got from someone at a seedy bar in a big city where his age didn't matter too much (not to _them_ and not to him, anyway). A lot has changed, and he _knows_ it has and he knows that _they_ will know it too and can't help but wonder what _they_ are going to think– about his nose piercing, the tattoos, the way he laughs at those who buy him a drink and fall for that sly smile, dangerous eyes.

 

He wonders what they will think about and cups the steaming mug in his hands, a cracked smile slipping onto his face and trembling in his fingertips.

 

\---

 

He's been asked before why he paints like he does and all he can do is shrug and bite down the words bubbling on his tongue.

 

( _even holy water cannot save you now_ ).

 

\---

 

He's fifteen and ninety simultaneously with fire in his blood and war in his past and a couple hundred memories of a boy with hair like the sun and a smile to match.

 

The sun inside him had raged like wildfire and he was burning gold underneath his skin. He was– _is_ still, he guesses– golden, molten yellow, dripping honey, and he remembers staring at the burns on his hands and wondering how much darkness a son of Apollo can take.

 

He remembers the gentle touches and tender looks and the trust he gave to those freckled hands, which he knows sounds _romantic_ , or something from a cliqué romance novel, but still he _remembers_ and there is that.

 

There is that.

 

(He left in the end and always will, he knows.

 

He hovers the paintbrush above the canvas for long enough that the paint drips down onto his shoes and he tries to feel anything other than the emptiness in his chest and an empty canvas to match).

 

There is an empty canvas, and his hands are smudged with pencil and shoes stained by paint. Blaring lights scatter over his skin, the dark wood floor of his apartment, in flashes of yellowwhiteblue and he stands there with his arm raised and an empty canvas dripping with laughter.

 

His arm aches, so he drops it, the paintbrush slipping from his fingertips, and he stares at the empty canvas with impassive eyes half-lidded and shadowed by his lashes, yellowwhiteblue dancing over his skin– a thousand lights, a thousand aches in his chest.

 

The nerves in his stomach entangle, choke his lungs, and he _breathes_ with no air and then wonders why he _can't._

 

_(even holy water cannot help you now)._

  


\---

  


The journey there is brief and quick and the shadows bend under his will. He steps from under a tree– _Thalia's_ tree– he remembers, brushing the pines from his hair and jeans, braces hanging low on his hips, t-shirt black, still, but devoid of a signature gothic skull (he wonders if that is another thing they will notice).

 

Dark– eyes, hair, clothes, the shadows churning under his feet, darkness in his gunshot smile that slips onto his face because _this is a memory and he_ **_remembers._ ** The fields stretch on, and the sky rolls as endlessly, framing the cabins he can see if he squints, there and unchanged and he _remembers–_ (remembers the heartache and heartbreak and nights of screaming and the days of numb that followed, sleepless night, cracking eyes and gunshot smile– he can remember the death and destruction and wonders, _really, how much can change_ )?

 

A year is a long time but maybe not long enough.

 

A stark contrast to his old, kinda tattered shoes, the grass is green, greener than he can remember it being, green and bright and the fields stretch on and on with the blue blue sky to dance alongside it. He slips his hands into the pockets of his aviator jacket, a classic thing he has kept in his closet for a year but today is _today_ and it seems appropriate to wear it (because he can _remember_ and wonders if they will, too).

 

(The grass withers a little under his feet and one year is a long time but maybe not long enough for things to _change_ ).

  
  
  


He walks with his chin tilted and eyes dark and fingers trembling in his fists, a strange kind of hush descending on his skin, his footsteps. They didn't know he was coming– of course they didn't, wouldn't care for the boy with teeth dripping with venom and eyes sunken into an abyss, not for the boy with (smoke on his tongue; boy with rebellion in his bones; boy with a thousand years of heartache in his blood and a thousand more in his gunshot smiles; boy with a bloody red grin screaming his name and fifteen years of ignition in his soul) nostalgia drumming in his chest.

 

( _Even holy water cannot help you now_ ).

 

Summer on their tongues, stares entangled on his neck, the ink on his collarbones, they watch and they stare and the hush that stifles the confusion shifts in the ground (trembles under his feet). He can hear the whispers and he listens with a pinpointed interest to the buzz of confusion and surprise, surprise of which reflects when he realises his skin is still untainted under their stares, strangely unjudging in a way that he longs for but also hates, too.

 

(People like him aren't used to this– people like him don't know of this, but goddamn to hell all the liars that do not long for it).

 

“ _Solace is going to be pleased,”_ he hears, and his fingers shake, and suddenly the fear he'd hidden under his bones flushes his cheekbones in pink, blurs the freckles that dust the bridge of his nose.

 

The pavilion is cracked, still, a jagged mark through the stone and he _remembers_ and he can taste bitterness on his tongue, nostalgia in his throat, not sure where he's going but he can hear Hazel's heartbeat flutter against her ribs (and Hazel is safe and safe is what he _wants)_ . The shadows are long, dark and thriving under his fingertips, and he thinks maybe _Chiron_ is there, staring at him with those deep, calculating eyes of age, but still he walks with his aviator jacket slung over his shoulders, digging his fingernails into his palms to stop the grass from withering under his shoes.

 

(But still he walks with trembling hands and chin tilted and ignores the hush heavy in the air).

  


_Chin up_ , he will think, a murmur soft against his lips, _don't look_ , he will chant. He will walk and–

 

(– _holy water cannot help you now)_

 

– his fingers will tremble in his fists; he will walk and he will load a gun on his tongue and he will be _beautiful– even holy water cannot help you now,_ he will think, poisonous breath in his fragile lungs, drunk from rose water and the glory of his blood.

 

(He will walk and he will listen and he will be _beautiful_ because this is what he _can do._

 

_Holy water cannot help you now_ , a murmur soft against his lips, a muttered plea into the hush).

 

( _I've come to tear your kingdom down)._

 


	2. tonight the moon will bleed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> will has a lot of emotions, but what's new

* * *

 

 

_**tonight the moon will bleed** _

  
  


Everything is  _ great  _ until somebody  _ dies  _ and he's back to square one again.

 

He will stare at their chest– frigid chest, unmoving chest, chest of a stolen childhood with the weight of a thousand more in their lungs, with his hands stained in red and he can't help but wonder if it runs deeper than that (can't help but wonder if there is black blood running in his veins). 

 

He will stare for a second so he can let himself think but not  _ feel _ , because he is  _ Will Solace _ and  _ Will Solace  _ is a  _ doctor  _ not a friend who lets himself  _ feel like this _ . Voice steady, unwavering, he will say “ _ can you get Chiron and Kayla,” _ and slide the cloth over unseeing eyes, a frigid chest, swallowing down the bile in his throat when he peels of his crimson gloves and discards them,  _ over and over and over– tonight the moon with bleed, too. _

 

He will clean the blood from his hands as the body is removed and only then will he  _ feel. _

 

He will scream and shards of glass will clatter against the floor, (because this is what happens when he  _ feels) _ , and he will kick and shout when hands grip his wrists, hold him back (because this is what happens when he  _ feel _ s; he screams and he fights and only then will he let himself cry).

 

There will be crying and shouting and the blood will be cleaned from the floor, from his  _ hands _ , over and over, each stain embedded in his skin darkening until there is black blood running through his veins, and he thinks,  _ longs _ for the boy who ran a finger over his pulse and murmured softly against his lips ( _ and tonight the moon will bleed _ , he would say, soft against his lips, when Will would speak with bitterness on his tongue over and over until  _ he  _ would silence Will's tongue with his own _ ). _

 

He will cry into his pillow when the sun is dead to the world and scream until his voice is hoarse in the morning (because this is what happens with he lets himself  _ feel _ like this, and now he can watch the moon bleed red).

  
  


\---

 

The days afterwards are  _ hard _ ; they always are and he  _ knows  _ it will be, but he has never been one for self-pity and brooding, wallowing in his sadness until he is slumped against a bathroom floor with glass in his knuckles, so he lets Cecil tell him his awful jokes, withstands Lou Ellen's shitty attempts of cheering up- but  _ at least they are trying _ , he will think, and he will smile and write down a thousand things he  _ loves  _ in a notebook with a thousand more memories in the pages. 

 

(Tonight the moon will bleed, and he will watch it choke and feel the ghost of soft lips against his own).

 

Today is a Good Day- is a Good Day because the sun is high in the sky and he can feel the heat on his skin, because the infirmary is quiet and he has two free hours before lunch where he will smile and laugh and think of a thousand things he  _ loves.  _

 

His friends will laugh with him; Cecil will tell stupid jokes and Lou Ellen will look away bashfully; the sun will shine and today will be  _ good. _

(The day will be  _ good  _ and he finds himself smiling into his pillow when he wakes up with the sun).

  
  


“Can you take my shift today,” he says to Kayla at breakfast, a feeling of weightlessness in his chest. She turns to look at him quizzically, and her red hair moves like fire in the sunlight, curls of flames licking at her shoulders.

 

She raises a brow. “Sure, I guess I don't have any plans or–  _ why _ ?” She smirks wickedly.

 

“Not like  _ that _ , Kay– I just feel... _ good _ , today?” He explains, shrugging in nonchalance despite the grin on his lips. 

 

“So what, you don't have do to work anymore, then,” Kayla huffs, raising a brow and smirking at him,  _ again _ and he swear he would pay to wipe it from her face. “Just kidding, gods William, you looked like a kicked puppy.”

 

Glancing at his hands, he tries not to let his cheeks burn like the sunlight scorches Kayla's hair into flames ( _ tonight the moon will bleed _ ), but he doesn't mind much because today is a  _ Good Day  _ and he knows it is.

 

Today is a good day and Kayla laughs and her hair sets alight.

 

(Today is a Good Day and tonight the moon will bleed).

  
  
  


The rest of breakfast passes in a blur and suddenly it's the afternoon and the sun in high in the sky. Waves lap around him, a gentle noise that snakes around his skin and bones and pulls him into the golden sand, as the surfboard beside him glints in the sunlight. The shadows are short and the sun scorching.

 

A sense of tranquility settles on his freckled tan, weaves into the sand that pulls him into its depths (he wonders if it will swallow him whole; he wonders if tonight the moon will bleed), and his chest rises and falls to the beat of the waves cooling his feet. 

 

It's sometime in October, but the weather is still scorching– not that he minds, of course; he loves it, the heat, the feeling of relief when he'll slip into the water and feel the waves swallow him whole (he waits for the sand to do the same), loves the part where he can walk around in his shorts and t-shirt and flip flops and no one can say a  _ damn thing  _ because they're all wearing the same ugly shit.

 

(And then suddenly it's the afternoon and he's watching the clouds roll by and counting his pulse as it thuds underneath his skin).

  
  
  


Passing in a blur, the afternoons slips through the cracks in his fingers and he finds himself staring at a darkening sky, the sun still shining hot against his skin but the air cooler, sky golden and shadows growing. He flicks the pages of his book with a faraway interest to the words printed on the page– the world printed on the words– afternoon slipping through his fingers and the evening running it's fingers over the horizon, sinking sun.

 

“Stop showing off, Austin,” he calls to where his brother sits on a stool with a guitar on his lap and a little crowd of giggling campers sat cross-legged on the grass. 

 

Around him, the strawberry fields stretch on, though his commitment halts at the words melting from the paper in drips of black ink. Austin glances over his shoulder at Will and flips him off, holding a hands over his chest in mock hurt. 

 

“You wound me, brother.” He grins and turns back to his guitar and Will can feel his attention slipping away again. He finds himself smiling into his lap and doesn't care to wonder why he can feel something in his  _ bones–  _ something that feels familiar but different altogether, something he thinks he should  _ hate  _ but  _ can't,  _ **_won't_ ** _. _

 

Something tingles in his bones and he wonders if tonight the moon will bleed.

  
  
  


Then the conch horn– as loud as deafening as always– rings through his ears, rings through the whole camp, really, and he sighs and tucks his book into his backpack without bothering to make his page. Distantly he can hear Austin laugh at something obnoxiously, see him clutch his stomach and something tingles in Will's bones and he can't  _ think. _

 

(But today is still a Good Day and he's determined to keep it like that, so he sets off in the direction of the Dining Pavilion with a tingling in his bones and Austin's laughter in his ears).

  
  


\--

 

(A year is a long time but maybe not long enough for things to change).

 

He is frozen, at first, feet stuck to the ground and he can't  _ move  _ he can't  _ think _ . The world spins, and he stumbles to the side, into someone's arm but he can't  _ feel  _ them push him away– can't feel the inquisitive eyes boring into his skin because it's  _ him _ and it's like all the emotions Will has tried to forget about for the past year come rushing to the surface, to tear down his calm like a hurricane will, (like a whispered word against his ear _ s,  _ his _ lips, would). _

 

The emotions rush to his cheeks, and he can imagine them stained in the red of expensive wine on pouty lips,  _ lips he used to know so well,  _ can imagine his cheeks stained in red but he can't  _ think  _ and the ground shifts under his feet.

 

(Suddenly he's fifteen again and linking his fingers with someone else's smaller ones, someone else's nimble ones, built as if for thievery and murder and  _ sin _ – suddenly he's fifteen again and he can't  _ breathe _ because he has never seen someone look so  _ beautiful _ covered in blood and pain, someone so  _ sad  _ with such dark melancholy in their eyes, aphotic grief in their veins, and there's a tingling in his bones and his tongue stumbles over his teeth. Suddenly he's  _ fifteen again _ and he wants to laugh and cry and oh gods  _ tonight the moon will  _ **_bleed_ ** ).

 

Stomach churning, he catches the breath escaping his lungs, steadying himself and weaving through the crowd. 

 

“ _ Solace is going to be pleased _ ,” he hears, a murmur rippling through the group, and he thinks that he can  _ see  _ the dead grass underneath leather boots already, the dark brows scrunched together in a automatic way of _ brooding _ . He pushes through the group and glances up and he can't  _ breathe. _

 

_ ( _ He can't  _ breathe  _ and  _ tonight the moon will  _ **_bleed_ ** and a year is a long time and maybe  _ long enough  _ for things to  _ change _ ).

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, i would love to hear what u think x 
> 
> thanks :))

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, and im not sure if i am ever going to continue this, but i will post it anyways. i would love to hear your feedback, and im very very thankful for any votes and comments :)
> 
> thanks !!


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